


Einfühlungsvermögen (or Feelings: A Primer for the Emotionally Inept)

by hitlikehammers



Category: Almost Human
Genre: 5+1 Things, Fluff and Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-23
Updated: 2013-12-23
Packaged: 2018-01-05 15:57:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,955
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1095872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hitlikehammers/pseuds/hitlikehammers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five human emotions that Dorian helped John to understand, and one that John demonstrated to Dorian—though honestly, given the givens, Dorian really could have done without the introduction.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Einfühlungsvermögen (or Feelings: A Primer for the Emotionally Inept)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Jetamors](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jetamors/gifts).



** I: Caring **

Dorian doesn’t have to access any of his situational subroutines to know that before he visits John’s hospital room, acquiring a stuffed bear holding a bright red balloon emblazoned with “Get Well Soon” is appropriate.

And hilarious.

More hilarious, admittedly, in the abstract, because Dorian—despite all evidence and logic aimed toward the contrary—is still uneasy, unsettled by the precise data cells in his memory that etch, in perfect detail, the look on John’s face as the electronpulses had ripped through his chest and pierced, shocked along the length of his pericardium as he shuddered, as he seized and crumbled to the ground.

Dorian blinks, and sees that he’s outside the appropriate door. He breathes in deep—he understands why it calms people, and that’s enough for it to calm him by proxy—and enters.

They don’t say anything to one another. John glances at him and huffs before his attention goes back to the tablet in his hands. Dorian scans the medtech that’s monitoring his partner, concludes that the Vastral Beta model—the Alpha’s still off the market, pending security revisions—is doing its job admirably in John’s chest.

“Timeframe?” John asks, gruff, inconvenienced, his eyes still on the screen that he holds, and Dorian rolls his eyes in return; knows exactly what John’s asking, and that’s strange, perhaps, to know.

It’s strange, and he likes it.

“Six months,” or so the conversation he’d overheard in the hall had divulged: John’s commission for a stem-cell cardiac regeneration would be done by then, if not earlier. “Bought and paid for.”

Taxpayers. They're generous like that.

“Hmmm,” John makes a face, fidgets. “Don’t want this thing in me longer than it has to be." He looks at his chest with clear distaste. “I don’t trust it.”

And the truth is, neither does Dorian, not in the slightest, but he can’t dwell on it, can’t _allow_ himself to dwell on it, because all his misgivings aside: the Luger Test stood, and he can’t forget what it said about him, what it said about the heart of him, the soul: synthetic or no.

He can’t forget that.

And so he doesn’t dwell.

The next time he needs repairs, after a close shave (sideswiped by a motorist as he was hanging out the window of John’s car, and he’d have blown both rear tires of the vehicle they'd been pursuing if John hadn’t swerved to keep his head on his shoulders upon initial impact—for better or worse); but the next time he’s in the shop, he finds an item in his bunk with the MX Ken Dolls:

A mint-condition, vintage release of Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots.

Dorian can’t help but smile at the gesture. Crude as it is.

 

** II: Amazement **

Shockingly, John doesn’t ask why they stop where they do. Maybe Dorian needs to give him more credit when it comes to his capacity for intuition.

“What in fuck’s name are we doing here?” John hisses under his breath, hand on his weapon, and Dorian rolls his eyes.

He should give John _less_ credit, really.

Dorian reaches back and stills John’s arm as he goes to draw his gun, breathes: “Quiet.” 

He’s still not sure if he should chance this, should take the risk of showing John, but it’s important, somehow.

He doesn’t want to think about why.

And he trusts John. Genuinely trusts him.

Another thing he doesn’t want to examine too closely. 

They reach the heart of the warehouse; the long panel before them is obviously two-way glass. Dorian creeps toward it carefully, quietly, and beckons John to follow. 

There are two figures: a woman, redheaded, labcoat. 

And a man. A synthetic. With Dorian’s face.

Black market DRN auths—everyone knows they exist. John inhales, sharp, and maybe this was a bad idea.

But Dorian _trusts_ him.

“First activation,” Dorian breathes out, hopes that the significance can be read clearly in the way he speaks, in the way the words come out. John goes quiet, goes still.

“They don’t let anyone but the primary initializer in the room for it, but it’s something we,” Dorian swallows, suppresses the emotions that rise as he loses himself—for a moment, only a moment, and still it’s so _strong_ —in the recollection, the feeling of it, of coming to life, of opening your eyes and finding that the _world_ was waiting.

“It’s something we never forget,” he whispers, and John seems ready to speak, to ask something, except then they hear it.

Dorian’s vocal tones, but not Dorian’s voice.

// Is this life? //

It’s innocent, so _innocent_ , the voice that trails though the mirror, and it clenches something wicked and wondrous and cruel in Dorian’s chest.

They can’t make out the woman’s response, if she makes one at all.

// There’s so much, // the DRN beyond the glass gasps, marvels as his hand moves to his chest, as he breathes, deep and fast: overwhelmed, and Dorian remembers that—remembers the flooding of everything he was with sensation like drowning and knowing, _knowing_ that it was a privilege, just to have it for the blink of an eye.

// It’s so much. //

Dorian wants to look at John in the silence that follows, the space in which the initializer must speak, must make some reply, but he can’t.

Everything about him feels tight; ill-fitted.

// What is my purpose, do you know? // the DRN asks, the curiosity bubbling from him, his eyes so damned bright. // There are so many, // his head tilts: // possibilities. //

The DRN breathes in deep, and so does Dorian, because he remembers this, remembers how it was true then, like it’s true now:

// It’s _exquisite_. //

Dorian very much wants to look at John, just then.

He will _not_ analyze why that is.

// Can I feel you? //

The DRN leans in, and something buzzes in Dorian’s torso, his circuitry. What passes for his circulatory system is, very suddenly, wildly overtaxed.

// That’s, //and the DRN is reaching for the woman’s cheek, stroking it with his fingertips; // It’s, // and Dorian tries to discern whether the subtle gasps he hears come from himself, or from behind him, or from either of the figures beyond the glass: he tries, he fails, and the DRN sighs softly: // Beautiful. //

 _Beautiful_.

It’s too much, all of a sudden. It’s too much, and Dorian turns. Dorian turns and walks and he doesn’t wait to see if John will follow.

(He does, he follows, but only thirteen point two one seconds later).

Dorian doesn’t know why he did this, why he bothered.

John settles in the driver’s seat beside him, and the silence is deafening until John breathes in, deep, and Dorian finally manages to look at him.

To just _look at him_.

Dorian knows exactly why he did this.

“I watched a woman give birth, once,” John says, and it’s surprising, him talking.

Saying anything, acknowledging anything that’s happened: choosing not to cheapen what they’ve just seen

“It,” John begins, shakes his head. “This.”

John pauses, and Dorian remembers what it felt like, before he was deactivated: on a precipice, tempting fate.

“This felt,” John sucks at the inside of his bottom lip: “Different.”

Dorian feels empty.

“But,” and John’s voice is quiet, but Dorian hears it, of course he hears it: like a whirlwind and the breaking of the sound barrier. “It was kinda like that.”

Dorian’s damned lucky he doesn’t _need_ to breathe, because damn it all to hell: in that moment, he couldn’t swing it if he tried.

 

** III: Regret **

The final toll is fifteen hundred. Fifteen hundred MX model androids. Warehouse fire.

No one knew whether they’d been activated, but Dorian: he suspects they knew what was happening, overtaken by the flames.

He feels something at the loss: slight—minimal, really. That’s not surprising.

What’s surprising is John. John, who is quiet. John, who is awkward, who doesn’t start the car right away after they both close their doors.

Dorian studies him, for a moment; tries to read what he can from the data he collects. Watches the way that John stares at the building smoldering outside, and he makes a deductive leap.

“They can’t feel,” Dorian tells him, and wants badly, so very badly to reach out and _touch_. “Not like we can.”

Not like _he_ can.

John says nothing, keeps staring, but Dorian thinks he got it right.

“Yeah,” John murmurs; jabs the keys in the ignition. “Just,” he shakes his head, as if to clear it; turns the engine over.

“Heat that,” he nods down to the lukewarm coffee in the cupholder, and Dorian smirks—a small quirk of the lips—as he slips his finger into the cup.

 

** IV: Bliss **

“Dear _god_ ,” John moans, and Dorian grins wickedly as he tsks, shakes his head and kneads in deeper, laughs just a bit at John's answering groan. 

“Did you seriously think it would work best if you just slathered it on like sunscreen?” Dorian asks, quirking an eyebrow. John looks like he wants to snap back with something caustic, but the moment’s gone in a heartbeat, overtaken with something like ecstasy on those features as Dorian continues his attentions—as Dorian does his damnedest to exercise all the control he has over his autonomic simulation protocols; keeps his cheeks from flushing.

“You’ve gotta treat it like the piece of meat it's meant to simulate,” Dorian tells him as he massages the olive oil into the synthetic flesh of John’s leg, working at the give of his thigh with dedicated precision. “It’s gotta be tenderized.”

Dorian presses his thumbs just behind John’s kneecap, and the satisfied hum of pleasure and pain that escapes John is nearly sinful, and Dorian has to tell himself that he’s doing this as a friend, as a _friend_ , and that’s enough, and his imagination is not involved in this scenario, it’s not welcome, it will _not_ take these sounds and make them into something that they aren’t, something that they’ll never be.

“And no,” Dorian quips as he slicks his hands with more oil; “I don’t plan on bringing any of this up at the station.”

John’s muscles stiffen just a bit, and it’s just as much of a question, by now, as if he’d asked it aloud.

“Your vitals spiked,” Dorian explains.

It’s unnatural, how focused Dorian is on John Kennex’s vitals. 

Thank fuck the Luger Test’s not admissable, anymore. 

It takes Dorian too long, really, to realize that John’s too still, that John’s head is tilted just so; to feel John’s eyes on him.

It takes Dorian too long to look.

Meeting those eyes is a trial and a joy.

“That’s not what I was going to say,” and John’s voice is rough, low, and it does dangerous things to every single one of Dorian’s basic functions. Very dangerous things.

And Dorian should be concerned that John’s pulse rate doesn’t settle, but he isn’t, he can’t be.

His processors; his consciousness—it’s far too preoccupied. 

 

** V: Hope **

Turns out, what John was going to say ends up being irrelevant within fifteen days, seven hours, fifty-two minutes, and seventeen-point-one-seven-five-one seconds.

Dorian doesn’t think either of them intends for it to happen, really—much as Dorian may have thought on it, yearned for it, calculated the impossible odds of ever _realizing_ it; but by sunrise, after those fifteen days (and seven hours, fifty-two minutes, and seventeen-point-one-seven-five-one seconds), the sheer amount of data that Dorian suddenly possesses: the taste of John’s skin, the texture of his mouth, the precise heat of his chest when it presses up against Dorian’s chest—Dorian knows these things.

It’s unprecedented; it’s incredible.

Dorian’s never known the world to look like this, to _be_ like this.

Dorian smiles as he registers the signals, the shifts in John’s biorhythms that indicate his ascent to wakefulness. 

He feels warm, so _warm_ when John’s hand moves, slides, splays across the center of his chestplate.

“Good morning,” Dorian murmurs as he turns into John’s body: not too close, not just yet, but near enough to inhale the scent of John’s hair, his heat, his sweat.

And when John exhales, Dorian feels impossibly light.

“Maybe it is,” John murmurs, and Dorian feels the words, and the breath, and it's amazing.

It’s exquisite.

The world—goddamnit; it’s bright.

 

** ∞: Terror **

Turns out, Dorian was right to distrust the Vastral implant in John’s chest, and the Luger Test can go straight to hell for all that Dorian cares: for all that Dorian will ever be able to care when he feels it, senses it—when his unfailing attention to John’s vitals sparks concern, immediate, for the way John's heart suddenly stumbles just before John slows, a look of confusion on his face as his hand makes his way to his chest, unbidden.

Dorian imagines that this is exactly what humans mean when they say that they feel ill, that they feel as if they're on the edge of breaking.

This _exactly_.

“John,” he says softly, careful but quick. “John, I need you to remain calm.”

He meets John’s eyes, meets them just as they widen and start to bleed all the things that John does his damnedest to hide, just as John’s heart—strong, but not strong enough, not _his_ enough to be that strong—starts to shudder and spasm, starts to fail.

Dorian follows John’s body as it falls to the ground, absorbs the bulk of the impact as John gasps, and Dorian’s running potential scenarios with impossible speed, is warring between the probabilities and the statistical likelihoods of survival of every route he considers, and the screaming of every piece of him, every element of his system saying _no_ , _no_ , _no_.

 _No_.

He’s pressing his hand against the buried line of scar tissue, running diagnostics and locating the incision that placed the failing biotech in this body beneath him, this body that _means_ something—he’s contacting EMS even as he orients his hand to deliver the shocks, allocates the electrical pulses at the proper intervals, the appropriate intensities, and he watches the slackness of John’s face, all selfhood stolen: he watches the way John’s chest shakes with each charge that forces the motion of that malfunctioning pump, that demands life, _demands_ it.

Dorian doesn’t know how long it takes. Dorian doesn’t know how long he funnels his own energy into John’s chest and forces it to be _enough_.

Dorian doesn’t know.

What he does know is that, once John’s in surgery, the world feels blurry, unfocused. He removes his optical implants to check for damage, but his grip shakes too drastically to run the proper diagnostics.

Dorian tries to scan for John’s vitals, though the walls, and he finds nothing.

He tries not to focus on what he knows beyond a doubt.

He should be able to trace John’s life-signs over greater distances than this.

What Dorian _does_ know is that the blurriness recedes, just a little, when the hologram nurse calls him to the comms terminal and informs him that John’s surgery is still in progress, but she needs to file a report based on potentially-suspicious findings upon the removal of John’s implant: a small chip that should not be there.

The world goes quiet, when Dorian hears that.

He contacts HQ, mobilizes every resource at his disposal: breaks protocol at every turn, but he doesn’t care, he cannot care. They suspect revenge, retribution for John’s role in taking out the extortion ring and screwing those involved out of their freedom, at worst; a cash-flow of millions, at best.

Dorian stares at the comms terminal and wills the hologram to shift, to beckon him again: to tell him that John’s fine, that John’s _fine_.

The hologram does shift, does beckon: tells him they need a genetic match, given the damage to John’s system, the precariousness of his situation given his previous injuries and treatments. The stem-cell regen is an option, but it’s not optimal: it’s not been tested, may not even yet be fully formed.

Dorian, it turns out, has been designated as John’s health care proxy.

Dorian feels as if every circuit and wire inside of him suddenly catches fire, suddenly turns to lead.

Dorian knows the statistics, knows the appropriate course: knows that untested bio-regens are touch and go; knows that stem cell regrows are processes of immaculate precision, can be invalidated by the smallest inconsistency, the slightest miscalculation.

Dorian knows what his answer needs to be.

_________________________

 

Dorian’s hand is in John’s when that hand starts to twitch, when Dorian’s chest fills with a fluttering he can neither quantify or explain.

When John’s eyes squint open, when Dorian can feel the steady increase—perfectly timed, perfectly pressured—in the pulsing of John’s heart, it’s beyond the capacity of every linguistic subroutine Dorian’s ever integrated, ever known.

John’s eyes on his are beyond Dorian's ability to contextualize beyond their own existence, beyond their own undeniable gravity and glow. 

“The stem cell regen was implanted three hours ago,” Dorian tells him, tightens his grip on John’s hand and tries to let the strength of John’s grasp in return—the fact that he doesn’t pull away, looks relaxed, that his heartbeat doesn’t surge or stumble, just continues on; _his_ , now, and _strong_ ; Dorian tries to let that touch leach the uneasiness, the... the _terror_ from his frame, from the thoughts and soul of him.

It works. Or else, it starts to.

There’s promise in it.

“The verdict?” John asks, and his voice is barely a rasp.

“You’re breathing, aren’t you?” Dorian tells him, quirks his lips and gets what he wants from it—a quirk of John’s lips in return—and Dorian is grateful. Very grateful.

There are still things left for them _both_ to learn.


End file.
